Since early this fall, Stony Creek Lake in Stony Creek Metropark has looked like someone removed a drain plug from the bottom of the lake.

In reality, that’s not far from the truth.

Since September, the lake level has dropped six feet from its normal summer volume leaving the area this winter to look like a glorified mud pit.

But the drawdown has been intentional, all part of a plan to make repairs to the lake’s south dam. The dam, located in the lake’s southeast corner, needed two leaking bypass valves replaced. The valves are needed so that water flow can be regulated when workers need to make dam repairs or perform maintenance, such as removing algae and zebra mussels. Lake levels needed to be dropped six feet to get beyond hinges that attach the leading face of dam, a large floating drum, to the stationary part of the dam, allowing workers to gain access to the valves and replace them. The lake has slowly been dropping in volume as water has been allowed to exit the lake via the south dam.

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Repairs to the dam were expected to be finalized late last week, and now, slowly, with the help of Mother Nature, the lake levels will be begin to rise once again. The repairs will ultimately cost the metroparks about $400,000, with general cleaning, maintenance, concrete repairs and the replacement of two sluice gates all part of the project.

“As the repairs are completed, we will be able to limit again the amount of water that goes downstream. And as the snow falls and the spring rains occur, we’ll be able to collect the water as we normally do. It will just take a little bit longer this year,” said Stony Creek operations manager Gary Hopp.

In the short term, it appears ice skating will not be available at the park this winter. Normally, as temperatures drop and the ice sheet develops on the lake, the park opens the bay near the boat launch and storage area to skaters. Weekends quite often are filled with skaters and pick-up hockey games. This year, it’s quite probable the bay will be nothing but frozen dirt. Ice fishing is still expected to take place, but fisherman will need to make a longer trek to the deepest part in the center of the lake to set up shop. The deepest part of the lake is typically about 23 feet during the summer season.

In a normal year, the lake levels are annually dropped about two feet in the fall to take ice build-up away from some of the pier structures in the lake. Once the ice starts moving in the spring, it can damage the boat piers.

One of the more interesting developments of the drawdown was that the disappearance of the lake water meant the area looked much like it did 50 years ago. Stony Creek Lake is manmade, with dams in the north and south controlling water flow. Prior to the south dam being built in 1962, Stony Creek flowed unencumbered through what is now the metropark. The dam was built in anticipation of developing a lake for the metropark, which would be opened in 1964.

The lowered shoreline also allowed for a unique opportunity to clean parts of the lake bottom which would have otherwise been inaccessible. Two volunteer cleanups were organized and removed about 1,400 pounds of trash.

One of the bigger concerns for park management during the drawdown was the survival of animals that hibernate along the lake’s shoreline, such as turtles, tadpoles and snakes. Hopp said the reason why the drawdown was done so early in the fall was to protect those animals. If they chose a spot to hibernate and the water was drawn down further, the animals could potentially freeze to death.

There have been some concerns among park visitors that the low water levels will be a problem once spring arrives. But Hopp said water levels are expected to return to normal by spring and summer.